Andy Muschietti, the director of 'It', has hailed Bill Skarsgard, saying his portrayal of Pennywise is "brave".

The Argentine filmmaker directed Bill on the set of the new horror movie, in which he plays Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and Andy has claimed the actor's willingness to take risks helped to make his job much easier.

Recalling his on-set experiences with Bill, Andy shared: "Each scene where Pennywise intervenes Bill provided a new flavour to each take because he was part of the concept of making this monster unpredictable.

"So ... and Bill doesn't shy away from the exploration of that he is so brave in that sense. And it was fun for him to surprise me and surprise himself and surprise everyone with new stuff. And it was, we even discussed with him before shooting we said, 'Let's go crazy.'"

Bill filmed scenes multiple times in order for the editing team to capture the essence of the character once the shoot had wrapped.

The director said: "Because there is something in the core of this monster that we want to capture It's ability, so we do different things and different behaviours and different takes that might amount to something very unique when we put the scene together."

Andy also admitted the horror movie, which is based on Stephen King's 1986 novel, gave the production team more scope than usual to be creative.

He told Collider: "Using bits and pieces from different takes. Which is something that normally you don't do with normal characters or normal stories, but this is not normal at all."